Tawba al-Thaqafi, a resident of Qazwin, but he preferred to leave his homeland and the pleasantness of residing in his own town of Qazwin, which had a breathtaking nature, and he traveled to distant regions and far-off lands, and he was keen to meet the great scholars of knowledge therein. So he journeyed to al-Rayy and heard there from the ḥāfiẓ Muḥammad ibn Ḥumayd al-Rāzī, and to Nishapur and heard there from the ḥāfiẓ Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Dhuhlī, and to Iraq and heard there from the two sons of Abī Shayba, Abū Bakr and ʿUthmān, and from Aḥmad ibn ʿAbda and Zuhayr ibn Ḥarb, and to Syria and heard there from Hishām ibn ʿAmmār, Muḥammad ibn al-Muṣaffā, and Duḥaym, and to Egypt and met there Abū Ṭāhir ibn al-Sarḥ, Muḥammad ibn Rumḥ, and Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā, and to the Hijaz and heard there from Ibn Abī ʿUmar and Abū Marwān al-ʿUthmānī in Mecca, and in Medina from Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mundhir al-Ḥizāmī and Abū Muṣʿab al-Zuhrī (1).

This was accomplished for him while he was in the prime of his youth and the fullness of his strength. We discern this from his hearing from the shaykhs whose deaths have preceded, such as Zuhayr ibn Ḥarb and Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Numayr, both of whom were in Iraq and died in the year 234 AH. Thus, his age when he heard from them would have been twenty-five years, and God knows best.

In this journey of his, he also met a number of jurists, such as Ḥarmala ibn Yaḥyā al-Tujībī and al-Rabīʿ ibn Sulaymān al-Murādī, the two companions of Imam al-Shāfiʿī, may God have mercy on him, and Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā, the Mālikī jurist. This last one was also among the shaykhs of Qurʾanic recitation according to the two recitations of Nāfiʿ ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān.

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(1) "Taʾrīkh Dimashq" by Ibn ʿAsākir 56/271, and "al-Tadwīn" 2/49–50, and "al-Taqyīd li-Maʿrifat al-Sunan wa-l-Masānīd" by Ibn Nuqṭa (137).